Euro Tour: London II

The final event on the Vermin on the Mount + VLAK tour was held at Power Lunches on Kingsland Road in Hackney and it was a massive event with over a dozen poets and prose performers. Once again, I served as guest emcee and kicked things off with Thor “The First Shall Be Last and the Last Shall Be First” Garcia, who read from his story “Eat the Rotten Eggs.” The poet Tim Adkins read a single long poem that appears in VLAK and Ulli Freer followed with more poetry. VLAK founding editor Louis Armand read from The Rube Goldberg Variations and was followed by Richard Makin who celebrated the official launch of his book, Mourning, the third in a trilogy. I read from Forest of Fortune and David Vichnar read a brief excerpt from Philippe Sollers’s H. After giving away a few Vermin +VLAK t-shirts and selling some books, we pressed on. London poet Nat Raha started the second half of the evening with a selection of poems and was followed by Seattle writer Lou Rowan. Stewart Home read some very short poems while standing on his head (seriously). Sean Bonney read a police protest poem and was followed by the poet Will Rowe. Jeff Hilson closed out the evening with a reading of a poem about boats, which he dedicated to your salty and wayward host. We packed up our books, at some kebabs and piled into a black taxi to begin the long journey home.